Paul Harvey's "The Rest of the Story"

A few weeks ago Julie and I were playing against C players. I was (and still am) working on using bidding and playing clues to figure out the opponents' cards. I was declarer and my LHO led a small heart, so I figured my RHO for the Ace. I played accordingly and subsequently lost a trick because in fact LHO had underled her Ace.

The frustration I felt that evening was mirrored in the A player who asked my brother's partner about the meaning of his 2 of hearts discard (see "A Lesson for A Players"). It turns out that experienced players' first discard of a low card is discouraging while a high card is encouraging. Many C players play that the first discard--no matter high or low--is encouraging. The A player in question had been burned several times by assuming that a C player's first discard of a low card was discouraging when in fact the opposite was true. He was determined to not let that happen again!

Awhile ago I wrote about the differences between A players and C players. One way to think about this is in terms of language; it's as if one group speaks Spanish and the other French. Although two separate languages, there are enough similarities for mutual understanding if both sides make the effort. Not a perfect metaphor, but there you go.